Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving in the United States. Many regard it as the beginning of the holiday shopping season. While it is not a federal holiday, several states observe the day after Thanksgiving as a holiday, which means many state and school employees have the day off. Therefore, the number of potential shoppers is high.
In fact, since 2005, it has been the busiest shopping day of the year. With retailers extending their hours and deals, the crowds and choas of Black Friday shows no signs of slowing down. Here's a look at the history and evolution of Black Friday.
Name Origin
The term Black Friday was first used in the United States to describe a financial crisis in 1869. On September 24, 1869, James Fish and Jay Gould tried to take over the gold market in the New York Gold Exchange. The first time Black Friday referred to shopping the day after Thanksgiving was in this 1961 Philadelphia public relations newsletter:
For downtown merchants throughout the nation, the biggest shopping days normally are the two following Thanksgiving Day. Resulting traffic jams are an irksome problem to the police and, in Philadelphia, it became customary for officers to refer to the post-Thanksgiving days as Black Friday and Black Saturday. Hardly a stimulus for good business, the problem was discussed by the merchants with their Deputy City Representative, Abe S. Rosen, one of the country's most experienced municipal PR executives. He recommended adoption of a positive approach which would convert Black Friday and Black Saturday to Big Friday and Big Saturday.
The use of the name was gradual, but by 1975, it appeared in The New York Times: Philadelphia police and bus drivers call it Black Friday – that day each year betw...
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...lahssee, Florida. In 2011, a woman used pepper spray on other shoppers, injurying at least 10 people during Black Friday shopping at a Walmart in Porter Ranch, California. That same year, a man in San Leandro, California, was shot leaving a Walmart at 1:45 a.m. after doing some Black Friday.
Cyber Monday
In 2005, Cyber Monday became a term used to refer to the Monday after Black Friday. The term was based on a trend of the two previous years where retailers noticed that many shoppers, too busy to shop over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, used that Monday to shop online.
With the additions and options of Cyber Monday and Black Thursday, perhaps the crowds and chaos of Black Friday will be more spread out, causing less competition and violence over deals. One thing is for certain, Black Friday continues to be a hugely important and success day for retailers.
People who didn’t have the money bought on margin. The stock market was booming and the excitement about the market caused a lot of over- speculation. People ignored the small signs of the impending crash until Black Thursday, October 24, 1929. Four days later, the stock market fell again. At first, the effects of the crash were felt by people who had invested a great deal of money in stocks, which was about four million people out of a population of one hundred and twenty million people.
There have been many financial corruptions and scandals though out history and in 1869 one such scandal rock The United States financial institute’s foundation. The attempt to corner the gold market lead to the preverbal straw which almost broke the camel’s back. This scandal has become to be known as Black Friday, not to be confused with the Friday following Thanksgiving this Black Friday proved that without oversight of the market it could quickly become a market of the few.
Kwanzaa is not a religious, political or heroic celebration rather a cultural one. It begins the day after Christmas and runs until January 1st. At the time of it's inception, Blacks were beginning to question the American culture around them and how they were reflected in it. One of the most glaring and incongruous reflections was in the Christmas holiday season. The mass commercialism of the season placed a hardship on poorer Americans, of which Blacks were a high percentage. Also all the trappings of the Christmas season reflected the dominant society, i.e. no Black Barbie dolls, few black or ...
Thanksgiving Day is a day of family, food, and giving thanks for the blessings in life and yet some people believe Thanksgiving to be a prep day for Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year. The focus of Thanksgiving shifted from family bonding to incessant shopping. This trend of taking away from the hours of Thanksgiving in order to shop is enraging. It steals away from family time for the shoppers and the employees. Employers threaten workers that if they do not work on that certain holiday, they will be fired. Black Friday should be kept to Friday instead of moving in on my family time. The whole culture of Black Friday has become repugnant and unnecessary.
On Thursday, October 24th, 1929, people began to sell their stocks as fast as they could. Sell orders flooded the market exchanges. (1929…) This day became known as Black Thursday. (Black Thursday…) On a normal day, only 750-800 members of the New York Stock Exchange started the exchange. (1929…) There were 1100 members on the floor for the morning opening. (1929…) Furthermore, the exchange directed all employees to be on the floor since there were numerous margin calls and sell orders placed overnight. Extra telephone staff was also arranged at the member’s boxes around the floor. (1929…) The Dow Jones Average closed at 299 that day. (1929…)
Black Press Day, other wise none as Freedom’s Journal was the anniversary of the founding of the first black newspaper in the US and was established the same year that slavery was abolished in New York State. It changed African Americans forever or colored people.
Thanksgiving is a time to get together with your family and have a nice dinner. Then you play games, catch up, and watch movies. Thanksgiving is the time to be grateful for what you have. But wait; now you had to start dinner earlier and cut out catching up with your family. Now it’s time to get ready to go shopping for those deals you just can’t beat. Forget about being thankful for what you have; now it’s time to buy all the things you don’t have. Has Thanksgiving been taking over by Black Friday, or should we now be calling it Black Thursday? Stores should only be able to open after 12 am on Black Friday.
However, in 1929 when stocks had soared to an all-time high, in September they plummeted. This day in history is known as Black Thursday and is remembered as the Wall Street Crash of 29. The crash hit people's interests hard. and Americans all over lost a lot of money. Banks had to spend all of the money they had on regaining the economy, and agricultural needs.
On “Black Tuesday” stock prices dropped completely. After “Black Tuesday” stock prices couldn’t get any worse or so they thought, but however prices continued to drop, the U.S. fell into the Great Depression, and by 1932 stocks were only worth about 20 percent of their value.
Beginning on Black Tuesday, October 29th, 1929, a total of 14 billion dollars was lost in America’s economy. Near the end of the week the 14 billion turned into a total of 30 billion dollars (The Great Depression Facts). Many events during the Stock Market Crash caused damage to the economy and lifestyle of the country, ending with recuperations from The Depression.
The black Tuesday, October 29th, 1929 has been identified as the symbol of the Great Depression. Stock holders lost 14 billion dollars on a single day trade, and more than 30 billion lose in that week, which was 10 times more than the annual budget of the Federal government.[ [documentary] 1929 Wall Street Stock Market Crash
Holidays have always been known to affect our consumer culture for many years, but how it all began eludes many people and very few studies have been completed on it. Even though some say that the subject is too broad to precisely identify how holidays, especially Christmas, directly affect our market, I have found that people’s values, expectations and rituals related to holidays can cause an excessive amount of spending among our society. Most people are unaware that over the centuries holidays have become such a profitable time of year for industries that they now starting to promote gift ideas on an average of a month and a half ahead of actual holiday dates to meet consumer demands.
The stores are tying to crack down on shoplifters by making the punishments as strict as possible. Shoplifting effects the community in a big way. The stores get about three cents per every dollar purchased for an item. So if you figure that they don't make a whole lot of money out of profit. Every shoplifter that takes a product also is taking the product, which costs money by the store so that is also a set back and puts them more in debt. Some stores might even close down because of shoplifters making the store go bankrupt.
Ordinarily, people witness vulgar acts and retaliate accordingly. While shopping on Black Friday, it is not uncommon to watch someone steal something out of someone else’s cart, causing an unruly argument in the store, or witness someone flipping another person off while driving down the
They do not buy anything for reasons that they do not have money or they need that money for something else. In fact these shoppers can be at a store for hours and not purchase a single item. I can say that I am a window shopper most of the time. I can look around for hours and not buy anything at all. I basically look at things that I want to buy for when I do have the money for it. I’ve noticed a lot of people do the same thing, they join friends to the mall to just hang out and they end up window watching, walking in and out of